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Apology posted:You probably know a lot more about it than I do. I did find a map from the 1870s that showed Kurdistan as a separate nation. For reference, there was also an Armenia on the map. Can you link to it? I have a feeling that it's probably Iranian Kurdistan, which was ruled by a vassal chieftain (Ardalan) until the Qajars outright annexed it in the mid-19th century. Any widespread Kurdish revolt or uprising in the current region would get very messy, very quickly. The Turks, Iranians, and Iraqis are all deathly afraid of pan-Kurdish separatism, and afraid that if Kurds in another country get too much independence, their own Kurds will want the same thing.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:20
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ALJ posted:Robert Gates, US defence secretary, says 400 Marines are aboard the amphibious USS Kearsarge - currently headed toward Libya. But he also said the UN SC resolution passed on Saturday did not authorise the use of force - and that NATO members are spilt on whether to take military action.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:25
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Roark posted:Can you link to it? I have a feeling that it's probably Iranian Kurdistan, which was ruled by a vassal chieftain (Ardalan) until the Qajars outright annexed it in the mid-19th century. I was wrong, it was from 1896, not 1870:  And here's a cleaned-up version that someone drew based on the newspaper map:  Edited to fix broken tables sorry 
Apology fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 21:31
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That's just a map of the region generally recognized as Kurdistan, not a state as such.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:35
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glug posted:And the US were influenced by the helping hand of France providing arms to us rebels, followed by Spain and the Dutch jumping in our our enemies and securing our breakaway, I mean you can do that poo poo all day and ultimately if you're going to judge a country and it's government you're going to have to judge that country and it's government. Cause what happened in 1776 is comparable to what happened in the 1980's when comparing current levels of corruption and their root causes. Are you serious?
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Mar 1, 2011 21:42
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Cartouche posted:Has the "security" council ever actually done anything of substance? Yes, they've fairly often sent in peacekeepers, issued arms embargoes, established no-fly zones, enacted sanctions etc.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:42
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Xandu posted:Yes, they've fairly often sent in peacekeepers, issued arms embargoes, established no-fly zones, enacted sanctions etc. I do have to admire how successfully the UN has been painted by the GOP as completely useless or irrelevant regardless of a person's general political leanings.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:51
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IRQ posted:I do have to admire how successfully the UN has been painted by the GOP as completely useless or irrelevant regardless of a person's general political leanings.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:53
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That and it's not a fast moving organ, it's an awful bureaucracy. People demanded the UN immediately enact a no-fly zone and consider peacekeepers, but that's just not how it works. Plus it's had abysmal failures in Rwanda and Somalia. And when dictatorships like Libya are on the Human Rights Council, it further erodes the credibility of the UN. The criticisms aren't completely off-base. But yeah, I've heard so many people bitch about international law being useless because of Israel and the US, but that just focuses only on its failures.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:57
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Xandu posted:And when dictatorships like Libya are on the Human Rights Council Well at least that's been rectified. Per the AP: quote:UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The full membership of the United Nations has suspended Libya from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Of course, that doesn't resolve the fact Libya was on it to begin with...
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Mar 1, 2011 22:06
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I'm glad to see somebody in power admit what a no-fly zone would actually entail.http://www.france24.com/en/20110301-libya-no-fly-zone-would-require-bombing-raids-us posted:AFP - Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would first require bombing the north African nation's air defense systems, top US commander General James Mattis warned on Tuesday.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:07
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Apology posted:You probably know a lot more about it than I do. I did find a map from the 1870s that showed Kurdistan as a separate nation. For reference, there was also an Armenia on the map. The other guy already kind of covered this, but that map you're referencing says right on it that it's a map of the Ottoman Empire, which had a province (not nation) called Kurdistan.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:13
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Ballz posted:Of course, that doesn't resolve the fact Libya was on it to begin with... Unfortunately, it turns out that dictators have no real problem with demanding children be shot in the street or troublesome minorities be exterminated while simultaneously acting like they condemn another country's abuses. Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 22:14
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IRQ posted:I do have to admire how successfully the UN has been painted by the GOP as completely useless or irrelevant regardless of a person's general political leanings. For once it's not the GOP's fault. Remember that not everyone here is American and the idea also exists in other places of the world. I think the cause is the difference between the public's perception of the UN and the actual UN. People like to imagine it as the overarching government of nations that can quickly intervene in international disputes (this is also where conspiracy theorists are afraid of) while in reality it is more of a loose alliance mostly concerned with preventing all-out wars. It is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not what many people imagine/want it to be.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:17
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Ballz posted:Well at least that's been rectified. Per the AP: Have you seen the entire list of members? The entire council is a joke. Problem is, there are so many terrible countries out there, and geopolitics leads to countries having positions they should not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Members For example: Bahrain Pakistan Saudi Arabia The list of countries, most of which have serious ethnic conflict, either overt or covert.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:18
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IRQ posted:I do have to admire how successfully the UN has been painted by the GOP as completely useless or irrelevant regardless of a person's general political leanings. If you lived in a non super power country that was in dire peril would you expect the UN to save you? I sure as hell wouldn't expect them to do much of anything. Sure they care, but they've stood by and watched so much poo poo go down over the years that it's to the point of no one having confidence in that way of helping people.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:26
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Apology posted:I was wrong, it was from 1896, not 1870: As pointed out before, the first map is showing regions, not countries. Armenia, on that map, is "the land where the Armenians live," not an actual country of Armenia. You can see national borders on that map and "Armenia" is divided between the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Due to some unpleasant events during WWI, there are basically no Armenians left in the Ottoman-held parts of Armenia and the Russian-held part, now the independent country of Armenia, is where most Armenians are. Your second map is some Kurdish activist's proposal for what an independent Kurdistan would look like. It takes the eastern third of Turkey, northern Iraq, a good chunk of northern Iran, and a sliver of Syria. You can see why that'd be unpopular. Anyone remember that absurd map that some neocon in the US made about what the Middle East should look? I'll see if I can find it.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:41
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Patter Song posted:Anyone remember that absurd map that some neocon in the US made about what the Middle East should look? I'll see if I can find it. Don't bother, it was a joke map.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:47
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Apology posted:Istanbul was Constantinople?
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Mar 1, 2011 22:55
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LITERALLY MAD IRL posted:Don't bother, it was a joke map. Fair enough, but it's still a good rendition of Kurdish ethnic fantasies of what the Middle East "should" be. There are a number of absurdities like Lebanon getting Syria's coastline that make no sense whatsoever, and I assume that's what you meant. Also, the two successor states to S. Arabia should be named Najd and Hijaz after their historical ancestors. 
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Mar 1, 2011 22:57
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Spiky Ooze posted:If you lived in a non super power country that was in dire peril would you expect the UN to save you? I sure as hell wouldn't expect them to do much of anything. Sure they care, but they've stood by and watched so much poo poo go down over the years that it's to the point of no one having confidence in that way of helping people. The thing is, the UN isn't an independent sovereignty with its own military or anything. UN peacekeepers are just volunteers from the militaries of member nations. What the UN does is basically provide a place where world leaders can meet and agree on things that are in everyone's best interest; they don't have any power to ENFORCE those things, because the whole point is that if you agree to something then it's supposed to show your intentions of actually doing that thing and you shouldn't have to be forced. Of course in practice it doesn't work out that way, and often you have the US opting out of a lot of the resolutions because it might technically implicate their military actions as being criminal and they'd have to prosecute. It's a voluntary system, basically. It's meant to foster goodwill between nations rather than act as some sort of global code of law.
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Mar 1, 2011 23:04
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Patter Song posted:Fair enough, but it's still a good rendition of Kurdish ethnic fantasies of what the Middle East "should" be. Also, Israel would never acquiesce to the pre-1967 borders.
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Mar 1, 2011 23:09
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Patter Song posted:Fair enough, but it's still a good rendition of Kurdish ethnic fantasies of what the Middle East "should" be. No actually the joke part (and I use that term very very loosely) is that there are states called "poo poo" and "rear end".
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Mar 1, 2011 23:13
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davebo posted:Istanbul was Constantinople? The City of the World's Desires
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Mar 1, 2011 23:28
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Protesters in Malta scale the Libyan embassy and replace the flag. http://f1plus.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110301/local/old-libyan-flag-taken-into-libyan-embassy Also from AJE quote:* Hague haven't you embarrassed yourself enough in the past few weeks? Who do you think you are? Biden?
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Mar 1, 2011 23:55
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Even in a fantasyland concocted by neoconservatives, the status of the palestinians is "undetermined"
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Mar 1, 2011 23:55
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LITERALLY MAD IRL posted:No actually the joke part (and I use that term very very loosely) is that there are states called "poo poo" and "rear end". He was quite serious, actually. He wrote a book about terrorist networks and their funding, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the map was included. I think he was quite serious, poo poo and rear end are obviously intentional jokes, but neo-cons actually believe that.
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Mar 2, 2011 00:18
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Well, my father has finally made it to Benghazi after who knows what reason kept him in Beda. He is a very money motivated chap, who believes in duty and hard work, but also loves anything that he can get, and is fair game. So, I would love to believe he had a gun at his head to maintain the facility, but I am sure there was something else. Not another family, the odds of that are too atronomical. He was one of two people out of 30 odd people. Only other guy was his Libyan boss, and his company is Libyan. He still has no visa and passport ( thats not the reason he stayed, he got out numerous times before) so thats more fun, if there is no longer the freeport in Benghazi. If he was, in fact, rolling in Gadaffii's gold like Scrooge McDuck I will donate a dime to the first 10 poster's favourite charities. As he won't give me any. Trickjaw fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 00:31
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http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/03/its_time_to_play_sheen_beck_or.html Gaddafi, Beck, or Sheen? It's actually pretty hard. Trickjaw posted:Well, my father has finally made it to Benghazi after who knows what reason kept him in Beda. He is a very money motivated chap, who believes in duty and hard work, but also loves anything that he can get, and is fair game. So, I would love to believe he had a gun at his head to maintain the facility, but I am sure there was something else. Not another family, the odds of that are too atronomical. He was one of two people out of 30 odd people. Only other guy was his Libyan boss, and his company is Libyan. You have a badass dad. edit: Wait, maybe not, that post was kind of hard to understand. Why did he go to Benghazi?
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Mar 2, 2011 00:57
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This belongs here:
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Mar 2, 2011 01:04
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Xandu posted:edit: Wait, maybe not, that post was kind of hard to understand. Why did he go to Benghazi? I didn't get that either. What kind of facility is it?
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Mar 2, 2011 01:04
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davebo posted:I didn't get that either. What kind of facility is it? Beda is an oilfield so he was probably working for a Libyan oil company from what I gather. It sounds like they eventually had to shut down when everyone else left. Hope your dad stays safe Trickjaw.
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Mar 2, 2011 01:06
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Yemen Dhamar  Taiz  Aden (couldn't quickly find one to show scale, but they're at least as large as in Taiz)  Shibuya  al-Hota  and from Sana'a, a video http://video.marebpress.net/watch.aspx?vid=5313
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Mar 2, 2011 01:24
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An interesting response to those who would say that the people of Yemen don't have a strong national identity. Not that anyone necessarily said so in this thread, but I have seen it several times.
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Mar 2, 2011 02:43
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Sorry, wasn't intentionally trying to be obtuse. He works for Agoco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Gulf_Oil_Company whilch is is a BP shill, but not above doing the worst. Its also a place that also hinted darkly by the old boy at doing more than one would assume in the field of nerve frying solutions than you would expect of an oil refinery. Every few years they blow something up with horrid effects. I can't say why he stayed there, I think he must have had a money motivator. I personally think he may have been offered a bounty to stay and maintain things. They still do produce oil. He was also working there when Regan bombed him. He maintains an apartment in Tripoli that my mother never heard of, so I'm sketchy, and to my eternal shame suspicious of his intent. e: It should also be said, I don't want the silly old oval office dead, and really appreciate the support.
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Mar 2, 2011 02:47
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From AJE: "3am Al Jazeera's correspondents report that anti-government protesters are being given crash courses in how to operate guns and larger heavy weapons by serving and retired army officers, in a bid to prepare for any possible confrontation with Gaddafi's forces. The picture below shows a trainee learning how to use an anti-aircraft gun in Benghazi"
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Mar 2, 2011 03:51
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Chade Johnson posted:An interesting response to those who would say that the people of Yemen don't have a strong national identity. Not that anyone necessarily said so in this thread, but I have seen it several times. Well, they're unified in their hatred of Saleh, anyway. Even the Islamists are getting in on the action.
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Mar 2, 2011 05:07
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AJE has an article outlining the intentions of France, Russia, UK and the US for military intervention in Libya. Quite a bit has been mentioned before, but it summarizes each coutry's opinion nicely. Here's the gist of it: US - has ships stationed nearby (6th fleet in Naples), as well as airbases, and the USS Kearange and USS Ponce will pass through teh Suez canal tomorrow. the US says they're for humanitarian aid, but "aren't taking any options off the table." UK - has airbases nearby, wants a no-fly zone in place ASAP, and Cameron is still going on about arming Libyans. A US military official said a no-fly zone is easier said than done, and would involve taking out anti-air defenses. There as talk from them that they might necessarily need a UNSC resolution to go ahead with their plans. Russia - ruled out a no-fly zone, want to focus more on sanctions. Claims that military intervention outside the NATO responsibility zone would be considered a violation of international law, and a no-fly zone is a serious interference of another country's domestic affairs and would require a UNSC resolution. Also said US military action in Libya could "kill the shoots of democracy in the region". France - okay with mlitary intervention, but only with a clear UN mandate. They also have a large airbase nearby.
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Mar 2, 2011 05:35
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I think that all seems pretty reasonable. Really, they shouldn't HAVE to do anything, but I can understand them wanting to be ready in case things take a sudden turn for the worse (like if some of the pilots actually started following through on the orders to bomb the country). The best thing they can do for Libya right now is to stay out of it, but keep an eye on it. The Libyan people seem to have established a pretty strong foothold in the country now, and while Qaddafi is apparently willing to fight until his dying breath, it's really just a matter of time now.
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Mar 2, 2011 06:11
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Xandu posted:
Wow, this picture makes the Teabaggers (gogo corporate-sponsored "revolutions") look even more shameful than they already are.
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Mar 2, 2011 07:15
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